![]() ![]() Dark, fast-paced, and riotously funny entertainment. A wry glossary "defines" British terms ("Nuffink: The way you say 'nothing' if you were dragged up rather than brought up"), but can't begin to illuminate the arcane mysteries of the British football-industrial complex readers are on their own there. About her mother's boyfriend's Velvet Underground albums, Shauna yawns, "It's nice that you gave some money to people just playing music for the first time." Allison's adults are sympathetically drawn, too-even the archvillain has a human side. There's plenty of cynical commentary about British consumer culture, and the students' sardonic banter provides a constant obbligato. football (soccer) team trying to bully an elderly homeowner to sell her house as the title hints, supernatural elements surface, too. The framing story concerns a Russian owner of a U.K. Why does John Allisons quirky and charming scripting work so amazingly well for Giant Days but just falls short in his fantasy titles like this one and By. Set in a grammar school in a British working-class community, this first book in his Bad Machinery series-originally published as a webcomic-has three earnest boys wing against three sharp-tongued girls to solve mysteries. 'This small-press charmer, based on an ongoing webcomic, is a stylish jumble of pop-culture references, sly humor, eye-catching characters, mystery-and, oddly enough, aliens.' - Kirkus PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (STARRED) - Allison is a triple threat: he plots deftly, draws confidently, and writes dead-on adolescent dialogue. ![]()
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